Flowers of Probability
by lsellers
Summary: Someone is sending Connor cryptic messages through time.


With thanks to Fred for beta-reading and jooles34 for the prompt.

**Obsession**

(a challenge drabble)

Nick had become fascinated by the patterns. If he stared at the model long enough and in the right way, links and connections would form like a stream of light crossing the space. Thinking in four dimensions, seeing the way things linked together, was the most incredible experience.

"You can't hide in your work for ever, you know." Lester said kindly one evening.

"What do you mean?" Nick shot back agressively.

"You are going to have to face Stephen's death sooner or later."

Nick ignored him until he went away. Lester was wrong. He wasn't in denial. He was obsessed.

**Thinking in Four Dimensions**

Thinking in four dimensions; you started seeing every event as the moments and choices that led up to it. You build models of causality, like the letters of an alphabet. The words of this new language stretched into the future. Nick ceased to be surprised by events. He had the opportunity to weigh the outcomes of every choice. It wasn't that he wanted to die, but he rejected each route that avoided death: Connor dead, body broken; Helen triumphant; Jenny's face burned, her mind gone.

The greatest gift, the language of time, hidden in the artifact, he gave to Connor.

**Flowers of Probability**

One of the things Lester liked about the summer was being woken up by the sun coming in through the window, rather than by the insistent sound of the alarm. He'd developed a habit of sleeping with the curtains open for precisely this reason. His ex-wife had objected strongly but now he slept on his own, he was free to indulge. The light woke him up gently and he was at liberty to enjoy the calm of his bedroom, the pale sheets and the dappled sunlight before the alarm sounded and he had to face the day.

His still moment of reflection was rudely broken by the insistent beeping sound of a blackberry, a startled groan, the scrabbling sound of `stuff' being groped through, the clatter as said stuff fell to the floor, more scrabbling sounds, presumably on the floor this time, then a thump and a curse as someone fell out of bed.

Lester closed his eyes and counted quietly to ten. Then he got up and pulled on a dressing gown and slippers. Thus armoured, he headed out to investigate the chaos in the lounge.

Connor was sitting on the floor, bed covers tangled about his legs and his hair standing out at several angles. He was peering at the readout on the front of the Blackberry. Lester couldn't think why, only one kind of message came in on the device.

"Where's the anomaly this time?" he asked.

"Hampshire." Connor struggled to his feet. "Right! Clothes!" He stared around himself wildly.

Lester observed the small heap of chaos which was Connor's corner of the living room. There was a trail of shredded cloth leading from there, toward the kitchen.

"Sid? Nancy? Utility Room?" he asked. For some reason the diictodons seemed to like it in there.

Connor's eyes widened as he, too, saw the trail. "Yeah, looks like it. Sorry!"

"I should be grateful that, on this occasion, it's your shirt and not mine. You had better go and retrieve it though."

"Yeah! Right!" Connor headed out of the room.

Really the boy was a walking disaster area. Lester surveyed the living room and wondered, not for the first time, why he'd offered the lad a place on his sofa, but he knew the answer. It would have taken a heart far stonier than his own to leave Connor sleeping at the ARC. Especially given Connor's, apparently unconscious, lost puppy air.

Lester also wondered, also not for the first time, about the state of Miss Maitland's heart if she could so easily leave Connor homeless, but he dismissed the thought. Abby's reasons were not his business and it was certainly unprofessional to be angry at her on Connor's behalf.

Besides, he thought as he headed to the kitchen to make himself some Oolong, the start of his morning ritual, Connor was simply an employee, and he had acted simply out of concern for staff morale and regularising the health and safety issues. Wider emotional issues didn't come into it.

"Dear boy, who do you think you're fooling?" he muttered quietly to himself.

Connor met him in the hallway, trailing a mangled shirt and two small dinosaurs. "I'm really sorry Lester. I think they've also had some of the spare sheets. I promise I'll find a new flat soon. Straight away even. I'm going to the letting agents this afternoon, honest!"

It would seem he was fooling Connor just fine.

* * *

The anomaly had opened dead in the centre of a stone circle, known locally as Maiden's Ring, a ragged oval of misshapen rocks.

"Not really in the same class as Stonehenge," Connor muttered, peering through the window of the 4x4. There was a light mist in the air, almost but not quite turning into drizzle. The world outside the car looked cold and potentially wet.

"Well, there's a reason Stonehenge is a World Heritage site," countered Sarah. "This part of the country is littered with these kinds of ancient monuments. You can't expect them all to be hugely impressive."

Quinn laughed. "Stop admiring the scenery; let's get on to the anomaly. Bag it and Tag it, then we can all go home for tea."

They scrambled out of the 4x4. The army in the Land Rover behind them tumbled out as well, focusing their guns on the anomaly while Connor and Sarah set up the sealing equipment.

"Any tracks?" Connor heard Quinn ask Abby.

"I'm looking."

Connor watched out of the corner of his eye as Abby walked slowly around the anomaly. She wasn't exactly graceful. Graceful wasn't really Abby. But she had that look of an animal, entirely focused on what it was doing, no unnecessary movements. He loved it when Abby was like this, as if she was in her natural element, a wild animal observed from a distance.

He wondered when he'd started thinking of Abby as a wild animal, something you could never quite tame and shouldn't ever try to hold onto for too long.

"Tracks!" called Abby. "Large ones!" She pointed off to the right and checked her gun.

Connor watched Quinn and Becker glance at each other. "I'll come with you," said Quinn.

"I'll come too," said Becker. "Lieutenant Richards, you're in charge here."

"Can I come?" Connor couldn't help calling across to the small party.

"Need you to seal the anomaly," said Becker. "Don't worry we'll keep her safe."

"I can look after myself thank you!" Abby's voice faded as the three of them vanished into the mist.

"She's not worth it you know," said Sarah gently.

"Well..." Connor paused to organise his thoughts because what he said now was definitely going to be important and he was trying to concentrate on the sealing device at the same time.

"Well," he said again. "Firstly, she's a mate and a good friend and I don't need more excuse than that to want to look out for her. Secondly, who says that had anything to do with Abby rather than just being fed up with being the incompetent geek that always gets left behind."

"Which of those do you want me to contradict first?" asked Sarah gently.

Connor shrugged and hit a button on the device, sealing off the anomaly.

"Don't bother, it doesn't matter." And it didn't really, not any more.

"Let's have a look then," said Sarah asd she marched towards the anomaly.

"Probably not much to see," said Connor trailing after her.

"You never know and it beats hanging around with you moping."

"I wasn't moping." Connor shrugged his shoulders and walked after her and he hadn't been, not really. Wanting to protect Abby, or be seen as a competent was just a kind of habit, because she _could_ look after herself better than he could and nothing he did or didn't do would make any difference to how she felt about him and, he realised in sudden surprise, he was glad of that. The kiss had been awkward and odd, as if in the moment he had got what he'd really, really wanted all along, he had suddenly realised it was not what he had wanted after all. He knew he'd been a little odd with Abby ever since, and he wondered if that was why she was being a little odd with him, and why she hadn't asked him back to the flat.

The anomaly hung over a rough stone lying flat in the centre of the circle. Deep grooves were sunk into the stone. Sarah squinted thoughtfully at it.

"Some kind of central altar, I suppose..." she said.

Connor shivered. "You mean like for sacrifices and stuff."

"Who knows? Julius Caesar would have you believe all sorts, but he was on the other side."

Connor glanced down at the stone again and then froze. "It's writing."

"What?"

"It's writing. Look, it's the same as the lettering on the inner rim of the artefact. Look!"

Sarah looked down at the deep gouges in the rock at their feet. "It can't be."

"It is! You know it is!" Connor scrabbled in his pockets in order to fish out his mobile phone.

"That's impossible!"

"Why? I mean why is it impossible? We know time travel works, we just don't know how. Whoever made the artefact, they left these markings here for us to find."

Connor snapped a quick picture on his phone.

"Connor! Connor! Unseal the anomaly!" It was Abby's voice.

"What?" He looked up.

Abby was running towards him, Becker and Quinn at her heels.

"Unseal the anomaly, Connor!" she shouted.

Connor looked beyond the people to see a large creature bounding across the fields. It looked a bit like a giant cat. Well, it looked superficially cat-like but somehow Connor wasn't quite convinced. He realised Sarah was tugging at his sleeve and then she headed back for the sealing device. Connor followed her.

There was a sound of shooting and Abby's angry voice. "No! Don't shoot at it."

"Careful of the civilians!" Becker's tone was calmer.

Connor reached the device and hit the switch, allowing the anomaly to surge outwards once more. Abby dodged around it. The creature leapt for her and vanished through the anomaly. As it passed, Connor glimpsed a pouch under its belly. Of course! It must have been one of the early marsupials, probably a Thlacosmilus, they had been a bit cat-like.

"Oh boy! Pliocene marsupial!" he enthused.

Quietly Sarah reached across and hit the control to seal the anomaly again.

* * *

From his vantage point on the balcony of the ARC's atrium Lester could see Connor and Sarah hunched up over the artefact. He envied them both their fixity of purpose and their ability to concentrate on one thing. Connor was cross-checking something on the device against what looked like his mobile phone, talking fast and confidently. Lester wondered if he was even aware of the change that came over him when he was absorbed with something and forgot about being anxious and socially awkward. One day, Connor would come out of his shell and be a force to be reckoned with. Lester hoped he would be there to see it.

Lester glanced at the clock. It was getting late. He should probably round Connor up and take him home.

* * *

Connor was having another peek at the comparative images when a cup of coffee suddenly, magically appeared at his elbow. He looked up to see Lester standing next to him, actually inside the hazard zone tapes he'd spread around Connor's area of his flat.

"I assume that is work?" Lester asked.

Connor tried and failed to detect sarcasm in his tone.

"Umm... yes! Thanks!" He reached for the coffee.

"Why don't you use the desk? You looked cramped there."

"Well..." Connor trailed off and waved a hand in the general direction of Lester's desk and the prominent `Do not Touch' sign.

"Ah yes!" Lester smiled thinly and walked over, briskly removing the post-it. "I don't want you to get backache in the cause of duty."

"Thanks, I think." Connor smiled nervously and picked up his laptop, carrying it over. Then he went back to fetch the coffee mug and several linguistics textbooks which he started to place on Lester's desk.

Lester coughed pointedly.

"What?"

Connor looked at the desk. It was already looking crowded and messy.

Lester sighed. He carefully removed a photo, a diary and a clock from the right side of the desk and placed them on the left. Then he moved Connor's books from the left side and placed them on the right. Then he stuck the post-it `Do not Touch' back on the left of the desk.

"Right, got you," said Connor.

But Lester seemed to have paused, one of the text books in his hand.

"Linguistics?" he asked.

"Errr... yeah! We found this script on a rock at the anomaly site and it matches the script on the artefact."

"I didn't know there was any script on the artefact."

"Not on the outside, but there's some markings on the inner rim. Here, look!"

Connor pulled up the sequence of images on the computer.

Lester stared at the strange squiggles, each a roughly circular shape, reminiscent of flowers. "Do you know what they are?"

"No idea, but several are identical to the markings on the stone."

Connor pulled up another image. There seemed to be five squiggles in a group of three and a group of two.

"So presumably the squiggles on the artefact are a hallmark or a serial number or something," hazarded Lester.

Connor was surprised. He'd never thought of Lester as particularly interested in the scientific side of things, beyond stuff that assisted the project clearly and directly. He'd not even made much of the markings in his report on the anomaly earlier that day. It could too easily be a wild goose chase.

Lester leaned forward to peer more closely at the images and his brow furrowed, but Connor realised it was genuine interest. Abby hadn't ever been that interested in the technical side of the anomaly work. Connor had tried explaining his theories to her once or twice, but her eyes had always glassed over. Lester always maintained an air of boredom and Connor had never really bothered to look beyond that. But, now Connor thought about it, Lester always asked relevant questions afterwards. He obviously paid attention and thought about what Connor said. That was unusual. Nick had paid attention but he'd never really followed the physics stuff, and now Connor was thinking about Lester and physics, hadn't he heard someone say Lester had a physics background? He ought to check that up. Lester didn't have a web page, but it must be possible to find his CV somehow.

Connor was suddenly and uncomfortably aware of how close Lester was standing and the way his arm, resting on the back of the chair, was lightly in touch with Connor's back. This could get embarrassing. Connor was definitely not going to get the hots for two flat-mates in a row, especially when one of them was Lester.

"Connor!"

He realised Lester was talking to him.

"Sorry, I got sidetracked!"

"I noticed. I was asking if they were a serial number."

"Well, Sarah thinks they were added later. Scratched onto the device after it was made. Something to do with wear patterns and craftsmanship."

"So not a serial number or hallmark then? What if it's just numbers, from one to ten? There are ten of them."

"If they were digits it might be zero to nine, but why would anyone just write a sequence of digits on the artefact?"

"Humour me."

"Well, if they are digits then the stone at the anomaly site says 51 something 1 something, or possibly 48 something 8 something. Oh! It was 51 north and 1 west, those were the grid coordinates of the site. So that squiggle could be N and that one could be W, but..." Connor tailed away, none of it made sense.

"What's wrong?" asked Lester.

"Why would anyone write a grid reference on a stone or just the digits on the artefact? I mean what purpose would it serve?"

"Well I hate to buy into your Scooby Doo-style conspiracies but maybe someone is deliberately leaving clues for you."

That was a pop culture reference. How did Lester know about Scooby Doo? "Are you sure you're not ill?" Connor couldn't help grinning at Lester a little. "You're starting to sound like me."

"We've obviously been living together too long. Give me another week and I shall be leaving my underwear out to dry in the bathroom."

"Oh sorry! I forgot about them!"

"I realised," Lester smiled gently. "Well, this was all very informative and more than a little disturbing. I suppose I had better leave instructions for people to look out for more of this script at anomaly sites."

"Yeah... probably."

* * *

"Connor! Come and look at this!"

Connor lifted his head at the sound of Abby's voice. Water was soaking into his tee-shirt as he lay on the ground. He glanced upwards, anxiously looking for the Quetzalcoatlus, and then across at Abby who was hiding behind one of the gravestones.

"Must I?" he mouthed.

Abby scowled in irritation and gestured impatiently to him to cross over to her.

Connor glanced up and around again, but he couldn't see the Quetzalcoatlus anywhere. Presumably it was off chasing Becker who had disappeared over the nearby hill making a lot of noise in order to `distract it'. Connor risked climbing to his feet and running towards Abby.

"Connor! Down!" shouted Quinn's irritated voice.

Connor threw himself flat once more as he reached Abby and he felt her arm on top of him as a gust of wind flew over them.

"Where did it come from?" he whispered, watching the creature speeding away into the distance to the accompanying sound of the soldiers' gunfire.

"It must hover at a high altitude," said Abby. "I expect your movement attracted it. Don't worry you're almost certainly too large to be a prey animal. I think it's just trying to scare you off."

"I think it's succeeding."

Abby patted him on the head. "Anyway, it's gone now."

"Right, OK! So what did you call me over for?" Connor couldn't help snapping a little. Abby had him confused enough already without trying to get him eaten by a Quetzalcoatlus and then patronising him. At least you always knew where you stood with Lester, even if that was a vast inconvenience to his orderly life-style.

Silently, Abby pointed to the back of the gravestone and Connor's eyes widened.

"So," said Abby smugly. "Was I right to call you?"

"Oh!" Connor stared raptly at the strange script covering the stone.

* * *

"It's a Rosetta stone," said Connor.

He was sort of surprised to find himself curled up on a sofa in Lester's flat, drinking cocoa late at night. Actually, he was extremely surprised. He kept expecting Lester to bark at him about feet on the cushions or something. Self-consciously, he quickly unwound his feet and put them on the floor. He saw Lester smile but the man didn't comment.

"You may be surprised to learn that I've heard of the Rosetta stone. I thought that was a translation between two languages."

"It was. OK Rosetta stone is probably a bit grandiose," Connor conceded.

Lester's eyebrows twitched. "Are you suggesting you might be getting carried away with a theory?"

Connor felt himself flush red. "Well... err... I mean."

Lester patted his arm. "Do go on, don't mind me teasing a little. I'm honestly interested."

Connor gulped and tried not to think too hard about the pat. "The gravestone is basically the key to the cypher. I mean I knew it was a cypher, so I started doing letter counts and stuff and then I realised it was just reproducing the writing on the other side of the gravestone."

"That's why you grabbed a contingent of soldiers and dashed back to photograph the graveyard."

"Oh, you heard about that." Connor felt himself blushing again.

"You possibly could have waited until the Queztalcoathus had been captured and returned to its own time, but no harm done."

Connor frowned at Lester. "Are you all right, I mean you aren't normally this...?" Connor searched for a word and waved his hands to demonstrate thought.

"If you say `nice', Connor I will make you clean the oven. I still don't know how you managed to coat the interior in burnt pizza."

Connor frantically groped around in his vocabulary. "You aren't normally this relaxed?" he offered.

"I can't be a hatchet man the whole time. Since you're here, I'm just having to trust you won't let the secret out."

"Oh! Oh!" Connor thought about that.

"Now I shall go to bed and get some beauty sleep. Good work on that cypher. I dread to think why someone is trying to contact us like this, but at least we will know what they're saying when they do."

Connor watched Lester leave the room. He cast around in his mind for anything else he might be able to do with the cypher and then got side-tracked into wondering why he wanted to earn Lester's further approval all of a sudden.

"Stop over-thinking and go to bed, Connor!" came a voice from Lester's room.

Connor glanced up and caught Lester's eye in the hallway mirror. Abby had never been able to tell, not really, when he was thinking himself into a corner.

* * *

"Any more messages?" asked Becker. They were all sitting at the foot of a sealed anomaly in the middle of rolling countryside eating sandwiches. They'd arrived at the apparently peaceful anomaly at midday. Sarah and Abby had suddenly decreed it was picnic weather and Private Finn had been despatched to a nearby shop to purchase supplies.

Connor shook his head. "No, maybe that was it. Perhaps they weren't meant for us."

"Must have been meant for us, surely. Who else is there?"

Connor shrugged. OK, so lots of anomalies only opened the once, including the ones where the messages had been, but that just meant they'd only opened the once in the past couple of years. Maybe they were on ten year cycles or fifteen year cycles.

Sarah had taken to making doodles out of the messages, vast spiralling shapes that started in the centre of the page and drifted out, like blossom on the wind. Connor had sat next to her through several briefings and watched as she did them. They looked a little like Nick's model. Connor and Sarah were trying to recreate it, but it was slow work. When Connor went through Nick's notes he found the same spiralling doodles in the margins, but they didn't say anything. If Nick was using the cypher, he wasn't sending messages when he'd made the patterns. It was more as if he was working through possibilities for the models, petals of an idea blown across the margins of the page.

"Aaargh!"

They all looked up to see Quinn backing away hurriedly from the cardboard box that Finn had bought the sandwiches in.

Sarah laughed. "Did Finn buy something healthy, like weight-watchers tomato salad?"

"No, there's a lizard in there. Gave me a shock!"

Abby leaned over the box. "Looks like we have an escapee. Here, girl!" She put in her hands and gently picked out a small lizard, about a hand span in length. It ran from hand to hand, Abby gently holding it.

"Let's open the anomaly up again and send her home," she said.

Connor flicked a switch on the anomaly sealer.

"How do you know it's a she?" asked Connor.

"Educated guess."

Abby stepped through the anomaly. Becker hurriedly picked up his gun and walked after her, a sandwich half-eaten in his mouth.

Moments later the two of them came out again. Becker was carrying a large piece of slate which he dumped in front of Connor. The strange script scrawled across it, written in chalk.

* * *

Connor tried to close the door to the flat quietly, he really did, but his rucksack caught on the kitchen door as he did so. He heard it swing, and lunged out to grab it. That was when the heavy front door clanged sonorously into place.

"I suppose I should commend you for working late." Lester appeared from the direction of his bedroom.

Connor rather wished that he had whatever Lester's knack was for looking good in the middle of the night. Lester was wearing a padded silk dressing gown and slippers that were a deep red colour. But his hair was all in place and he still looked trim, dapper and handsome. Connor was uncomfortably aware that he looked like a startled hamster for a good half hour after he woke up. He glanced self-consciously in the hallway mirror. He didn't even rise to startled hamster this late at night. He just looked bleary and unshaven.

"I was trying to be quiet," he explained and gestured a little helplessly at the two doors that had conspired against him.

Lester sighed in an exaggerated fashion but Connor thought he detected the ghost of a smile. "Time for cocoa I think, and you can tell me what the cypher says."

Connor trailed after him into the kitchen. "It says there's going to be a monster anomaly, in about two days, near Bedford. A confluence of several anomalies, in several eras and of particular attraction to predators."

"Have you told Becker?"

"Yes."

"That's as much as you can do for now. We can start putting measures into place in the morning." Lester pushed a mug of cocoa towards him.

"What if it's a hoax?"

"Then I will look foolish for believing you. Do you think it's a hoax?"

Connor shrugged. "I don't know. I don't really understand who is communicating with us, or why they are telling us stuff, or even why they are doing it in a cypher."

Lester sat down opposite Connor across the kitchen counter and tapped his chin. "All good questions. I don't think cyphers and codes are really Helen's style and she's the only person we know of who's out there through the anomalies."

"No," Connor agreed. "It doesn't seem like her, she'd turn up in person and drop hints, wouldn't she?"

"If past form is anything to go by, yes. I think we should take this warning at face value, if this is a ploy to make us trust someone, then the first piece of information will be good. It's the next message we have to worry about."

Connor felt himself nodding. Lester was probably better at the people side of the problem than he was.

"You look done in," observed Lester. "If the show isn't for two days why don't you take tomorrow off?"

"Need to make sure the sealing device will cope with something that big," Connor explained.

Lester nodded. "I see. Well, get a good night's sleep. I don't want you making mistakes."

He stood up to leave.

"Why are you being so nice to me?" Connor blurted out suddenly, as Lester reached the door. "I mean I know it's a pain having me around and I mess stuff up..."

"Maybe I like you" Lester flashed him a tired smile. "I admire hard work and you are very good at the technical side of things. If you need a little chaos for that to happen, well, let's say I'm getting used to it."

"Oh!" Connor tried out a small smile back in Lester's direction.

Lester nodded and left. "Don't forget to wash up the mugs before you go to bed though," his voice drifted back down the corridor.

Connor looked down. He'd been doodling on Lester's note pad while they talked. He realised now it was like Sarah and Nick's doodles. Spirals of lettering, like multiple possibilities reaching out from one point in time, Connor thought. Then he frowned and wondered why he would think something like that. He crumpled up the paper and threw it in the bin. He didn't have many possibilities really. He was reduced to squatting in Lester's flat even though Lester didn't seem to mind the fact. But the images danced in his mind as he went to bed making him think what ifs... What if Abby asked him back? What if he applied for a PhD with one of the big American universities? What if he got eaten by a large predator in two days time? He had a vision of a large smilodon bounding towards him across an open field, it's jaws stretched large.

* * *

Lester watched as soldiers swarmed all over the small farm in Bedfordshire that had been indicated in the cryptic message. It was called Galleycross farm. Sarah, not very helpfully in Lester's opinion, had informed them that the name was once Gallows' Cross farm, called after the gallows that had hung at the nearby crossroads.

They had evacuated the farmer, after much complaint and a threat that they would impound his herd for foot and mouth. Lester could still feel Becker's angry eyes on the back of his head for that. Becker had family who farmed, but Lester had wanted the man out for the six hours of Connor's window.

It slightly surprised Lester that he was putting so much faith in Connor. But then, unlike Nick, Connor hadn't pressurised him to do anything particular. He'd given him the evidence and left Lester to make the political decisions and, given the evidence, Lester didn't want to risk anything big happening.

Connor had connected long cables up to the farm power supplies. These snaked out across the cobbled yard and into the nearby meadow where the anomaly was due to appear.

"Are you going to need a lot of power?" Lester asked him.

"Not sure to be honest," Connor said. "I've done some modelling and if it really is a big anomaly then yes, the bigger it is the more power we'll need to seal it but, right now, I've no idea how big it will be. The note didn't say. I reckon about twice the usual size, though."

"What makes you say that?" asked Lester.

Connor blinked. "Not sure it just seems like, you know..." He shrugged and then gestured with his arms to indicate an expanse in the centre of the field. "It just seems like it would be about right if it were that big. I can see it in my mind's eye."

Lester looked at the field and couldn't help a shrug.

* * *

Connor hadn't expected it to be so large. The huge glowing anomaly seemed to fill half the field. Several guns tumbled into it, the soldiers unprepared for the magnetic pull of so vast a shape. Twice the size had definitely been an under-estimate. Spatial reasoning had never been Connor's strong point.

"Car! Connor!"

Connor looked round uncertainly just as Lester barrelled into him, pushing him to the ground. A Land Rover rolled past.

"What?" asked Connor.

"Someone must have left the hand brake off!" shouted Becker. Then he opened fire.

"Ah! Seems like the excitement has started." Lester climbed off Connor, brushing down his suit.

Connor struggled to his feet. His attention was only half on the scene around him, though, the other half was focused on some very mixed emotions about what had just happened. Not to mention the embarrassment of some immediate physiological effects.

"Can we seal it?" Lester waved a hand in front of his eyes. "Connor! Seal it!"

Connor blinked and then grabbed the large handle he'd fixed to the anomaly sealer. He hauled it down hurriedly. The anomaly shrank slightly, more to the size Connor had expected. In fact so much more to the size Connor had expected, that it now almost perfectly matched the picture in his head. A picture of pulsating light and men clustered around it firing as large sinuous creatures bounded through, their eyes glittering and their jaws spread wide.

"Smilodons," murmured Connor in awe.

"Can we seal it?" demanded Lester. "Has something gone wrong?"

"Not exactly, we just need to bring the secondary power unit online. I factored this in."

"Now would be a good time for that secondary unit, I think."

Connor began to sprint to the next power station, aware that Lester was running at his heels.

He fumbled at the controls, scrabbling for the switches.

"Take your time," said Lester. It sounded sarcastic.

Two choices leapt clearly into Connor's mind. He could snap at Lester who would back off and walk away, looking embarrassed, then Connor would be on his own when the smilodon from his dreams bore down on him, or he could let Lester stay.

"Take a deep breath," advised Lester suddenly. "Keep calm, the soldiers have the situation under control."

Connor realised he'd been standing stock still in indecision, his mouth open. More and more animals were pouring out of the anomaly, from several eras it would appear.

"Are you sure it's under control?" he stammered.

Lester's eyebrows shot up for a moment. "Absolutely, special forces will handle it. Take your time."

"Right, calm," Connor muttered to himself and focused on the controls and the monitors. It was tempting just to switch the thing on, but he knew there was a risk of overload which is why he'd set up the monitors in the first place. Gradually, he began to increase the power.

His concentration was shattered by the sound of shots close by. He glanced up to see that Lester had a pistol in one hand. A large smilodon was bearing down on him, it's jaws open wide. This is it, he thought, I'm going to die. Then Lester's gun cracked again and the smilodon crumpled into a heap a couple of yards away.

"Lester?"

"All under control."

Connor looked back to the dials and raised the power a notch. There was a soft whooshing sound. He looked up to see that up the anomaly was sealed. It hung in the sky like a large orange ball.

"Good lad!" said Lester.

Connor glanced around at the chaos on the field. "Sorry it took so long!"

"You did your job. Don't knock yourself."

* * *

Connor was sitting next to Lester on the sofa. He'd rather cautiously agreed to watch `Dial M for Murder' and was surprised by how much he was enjoying it. Out of the corner of his eye he was assessing Lester's DVD collection of classic movies. He really needed to go on Wikipedia and work out where the gaps were. He was sure Lester wasn't being systematic about the collection at all. In fact it looked like it was sorted alphabetically rather than into a proper categorisation.

Lester groaned when there was a knock on the door. "At least it won't be work, they'd page us," he muttered as he left the sofa.

Connor paused the DVD and listened as Lester opened the door. He heard him call `hello' into the corridor beyond, sounding a little puzzled. Then Lester's footsteps returned.

"This was on the mat." Lester dropped a sheet of paper into Connor's lap. It was covered in the scrawl of the cypher.

"Another clue?" asked Connor.

"I don't know. The envelope was addressed to both of us." Lester turned the envelope over in his hands. "High quality paper. Someone cares about their stationary. What does the letter say?"

Connor picked it up and began to read.

* * *

Lester watched in fascination as Connor read the letter. After about a minute, he suddenly blushed bright red from the exposed neck where his shirt top was unbuttoned, right up to the tips of the ears that Lester could peeping through his hair.

"What does it say?" Lester asked, curiosity getting the better of him.

"Errr... it's personal." Connor stuttered.

Lester looked down at the envelope. "It's addressed to both of us."

"Err... yes..."

"So?"

"Well, it says." Connor took a deep breath and blushed again, refusing to meet Lester's eye.

"Do go on."

"It says that you, I mean me. I mean, it says that we, you know." Connor looked desperately at Lester.

Lester was beginning to have an inkling of what the letter said, but Connor was looking too irresistible not to tease a little further. "You are not being entirely clear, Connor."

Connor gulped and looked back at the coded letter once more. "Well, it ends..."

"Yes," prompted Lester.

"It ends by saying `stop faffing around and kiss each other.'" It came out in a rush and Connor's eyes fixed on the letter in his hands.

"That sounds like eminently sensible advice to me." Lester was a little surprised, it had to be said, to discover Connor reciprocated his feelings, but it wouldn't do to show it at this point.

"Umm... yes..." Connor looked up anxiously.

Lester leaned forwards.

* * *

Lester smiled to himself as he watched the lights go out in the apartment opposite.

"Was the cypher really necessary?" asked Sarah.

He turned to look at her where she stood sweating in her furs. They had come from the Ordovician ice age and needed to return there soon.

"You know it was. Anything else and the wrong people would have got the message. Besides, we needed to be prompted into looking at the symbols and understanding their purpose. Constructing a cypher from them just kick-started that process."

"I remember when I found that description of them in the British library. I was so excited. The flowers of probability, the author called them, letting us map paths to desired outcomes." Sarah sounded wistful, remembering care-free days when consequences weren't so stark.

"How terribly poetical. Unsurprising, I suppose. The premonitions they induce are very vivid."

"But I really meant was it necessary to use a cypher for that final letter?"

"That may have been an indulgence. Connor looked very cute as he read it."

Lester pulled his own coat about him and fished out the anomaly locator. They needed to get going. They had things to do and very little time for indulgences like this.

**The Road Not Taken**

(A challenge drabble)

They called it the Language of Time. Connor's writing spiralled out, tracing paths he might take through the future.

Sarah's hand squeezed his shoulder. "Bad luck," she whispered.

There were lots of paths. Some led to peace and quiet, waking up each morning with the same head resting in his arms, even if the world outside went to pot.

But Sarah knew the road he would take. The hurried kiss and the promise to return. Beyond that he couldn't see. He wasn't fluent enough in the language. He just hoped that road would eventually wind its way back to Lester.


End file.
